


in the night, there are echoes

by rarmaster



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 08:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17505431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: Lloyd doesn't really remember the night his mom died.But sometimes he dreams about it.





	in the night, there are echoes

To say Lloyd remembers the night his mother died would be too generous. He doesn’t, really. Flashes, sometimes, a feeling of sickness and dread in his stomach if he dwells on it too long, but—not much more than that. It’s been almost fifteen years, so of course he doesn’t remember it that clearly.

But memories like that, as big as that, they tend to cling to you.

So sometimes Lloyd dreams about that night.

It’s rainy and dark—he sees the rain, knows its raining, but can’t feel the rain because it’s a dream—and he’s clinging to Noishe’s back except Noishe is a bird? That’s a funny thing his brain does a lot, paint Noishe like a bird in his dreams. Green and white press against his vision and he clings even though the rain makes it hard to hold on.

_Daddy told him to stay with Noishe and if Daddy says that he means it so Lloyd clings_

_But why is Noishe so antsy_

There’s a roar in the distance and it makes dread curdle up in his stomach and he hates this hates all of this. His muscles are all tight and he wants to run

_But he’s supposed to stay with Noishe_

He wants to get away from here he doesn’t want to see it again. Cursing, in the distance. A voice he almost recognizes for a second. Deep, male, catching on every other syllable with horror. The sound a sword makes it connects with monster flesh. Flashes of light, mana in the air, he recognizes those spells that burn through the trees.

(he sees spells cast all the time, now, though, from Genis, from Kratos, so his mind has the ability to supply familiar imagery to old memories)

The screaming doesn’t stop. Noishe is restless, and Lloyd can barely hang on. His fingers are wet, water slides off feathers— _why is it always feathers and never fur, Noise shouldn’t be this hard to cling to_ —and his hands slide with, but he holds on, he holds on. There’s another roar of a monster.

_Usually Daddy tells Noishe to look after him and Mommy both_

_Where’s Mommy_

(he knows exactly where his mother is)

“Pitiful, isn’t it?” Kvar is here now, even though Lloyd remembers watching Kratos’ sword slice Kvar clean open. “Inferior beings, fighting like animals.”

The dream shifts and instead of the forest he sees the Desian base, cold and mechanical, even though it’s still raining. There’s a monster like Marble and when it roars Lloyd knows it’s a roar of pain and anguish, not like this, not like this, he didn’t want to see her like this—

(“Lloyd? Hey, Lloyd…!”)

“It’s the least she deserves, really.”

“Kvar!” Lloyd spits, wanting to reach for his swords

_But he has to hold onto Noishe, Daddy told him to stay with Noishe if there was ever trouble_

_He has to hold onto Noishe_

“Don’t talk about her like that!”

(“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know if I should wake him? He looks like he’s having a nightmare…”)

His dad’s here now and his dad is—

Kratos?

(that’s funny but you know what even the most coherent dreams have some bits that don’t make any sense and it’s not like he knows what his dad looks like anyway)

And it’s, weird, like super weird, to see Kratos fighting exactly how Lloyd remembers him fighting, a perfect deadly blend of sword and magic and he’s efficient but that’s _wrong_ that’s so _wrong_ something about this image is wrong.

“It’s the least he deserves, too.”

_Why is it so hard to hold on_

(“Lloyd? Lloyd!”)

Trying to rectify what he thinks is wrong about the image the dream supplies Kratos but he’s sloppier and that’s weird but that’s right, the desperate way Kratos moves, magic bright but not powerful enough, sword missing more than it hits and that’s worse that’s so much worse.

Kratos’ voice shouldn’t crack like that.

Kratos, stone-cold and always certain, should not sound like his heart is being ripped out of his chest.

_He doesn’t want to hear Daddy scream like that_

“Stop stop stop!” Lloyd screams but he can’t close his eyes.

(“Lloyd!”

“Lloyd, come on, please.”)

He has to watch and he doesn’t want to watch, why does this nightmare have to come back to him tonight of all nights, when he knows what happened, when he knows how this ends, and he doesn’t want to see _Kratos_ do it—

“You think he has the luxury to stop?” Kvar’s voice, high and delighted.

Lloyd wants to move he wants to help but

_But Daddy told him to stay with Noishe!!_

His mother screams in anguish and Kratos screams something that could easily match and the sword connects—

(“ _Lloyd!_ ”)

He jolts awake, Colette pulling her hands hastily away from his arm, Kratos knelt behind Colette, eyes pinched with concern. Colette looks startled, then relieved. Lloyd’s mind takes a moment to process and slot itself back into reality, but when he does, he laughs, nervous and breathless, clutching at his chest.

“Are you okay?” Colette asks.

He kind of wants to curl up and be sick, frankly, but.

“Just a nightmare,” Lloyd says, to reassure her and himself. The images play back in his mind and _okay he’s probably never going to forget seeing Kratos like that, what the fuck, brain_. He laughs again, angry, remembers that Genis and Raine and Sheena are still sleeping and it’s already bad enough that Colette and Kratos were woken by his distress. “I’m fine,” he says. He knows Colette doesn’t believe him, and it doesn’t look like Kratos does either, but: “I’m fine.”

Colette presses herself into his side, and he’s grateful for the touch, actually, their shoulders touched together.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Colette offers, her tone light and delicate. “I know sometimes that helps me with nightmares, because then I realize just how silly they really were!”

“It… wasn’t that silly,” Lloyd mumbles, turning his head away. “I dreamt about… the night my mom died.”

“Oh,” Colette says, quiet.

( _she understands, though_

 _when she dreams of turning lifeless trapped in her own body unable to move or scream that’s not really silly, either, and it makes her kind of glad she can’t dream anymore_ )

“I’ll go make some coffee,” Kratos says, excusing himself from the conversation. Lloyd appreciates it, because maybe coffee will help his nerves. Even just having something else to do with his hands, something else to think about, might be nice.

“Sorry,” Colette whispers, finding Lloyd’s hand and playing with his fingers. Lloyd lets her. It’s distracting. He could use distracting right now.

“Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault,” Lloyd tells her, annoyed, but fond. Colette really has to stop apologizing all the time, but she wouldn’t really be her if she didn’t, he guesses. He reaches over with the hand she’s not holding and ruffles her hair. “It’s Kvar’s fault, probably. If he hadn’t told me the truth…”

He trails off. Shudders.

Colette’s quiet, for a long moment.

Then she asks:

“Would you have rathered not knowing?”

It’s sincere. Lloyd thinks about it before he answers with a small shake of his head—he doesn’t want to dislodge how she’s tucked her head into his shoulder.

“No,” he says. “It’s nice to know the truth. And… I mean, this isn’t exactly the first time I’ve had a nightmare about this.”

Colette doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move so much that it’s almost like she doesn’t breathe. After a second her hand turns his over, fingers finding his exsphere, the stone that took his mother’s life. She runs her fingers over it gently, sadly, expression pinched as she looks out to the distance.

He’s probably made it difficult for her to say anything, so Lloyd finds a way to keep talking.

“It’s, weird, though,” he says, and he does laugh, as he thinks about it. It wasn’t really a fun thing to see but it was a funny thing that happened. “Kratos was in my dream? Like I get I don’t know what my dad looks like, but—”

A clatter, from the direction Kratos went. Lloyd and Colette whip their heads towards him in unison, surprised. They find him knelt on the ground, scowling at the mug of coffee he dropped as its contents spill into the grass. Lloyd’s a little surprised. _Kratos_ is not someone he would have pegged as clumsy enough to just drop a mug unprompted.

(Then again, it’s the middle of the night and he’s probably tired, Lloyd should cut him some slack.)

Kratos says nothing, unaware he’s being stared at, and after a moment he sighs and starts cleaning up.

“Was he?” Colette asks, with a little laugh.

Lloyd pulls his eyes away from Kratos, pushes down the memories of the dream when they bubble up. ( _Kratos had sounded kind of distraught when they faced Kvar, but that was like, in an angry way, not anything like the sounds his dream conjured up—_ no, no, Lloyd, you literally just told yourself you’d stop thinking about it.)

“Yeah, he was,” Lloyd continues, laughing as well. “It was… weird.” Kind of unsettling, actually. More images try to repeat in his mind but he doesn’t like to think about Kratos like that, doesn’t know why his mind was so insistent on painting that image. He shivers. “Actually, I’d rather not think about it.”

“Okay,” Colette says, and nothing more. She usually doesn’t argue about things like these.

Lloyd hums to himself, as Colette runs her fingers over the back of his hand, tries to let himself get distracted by how it kind of tickles but instead he thinks of the sensation of rain and wet feathers slipping through small fingers—

Actually that’s something he could tell Colette about, huh.

“Noishe was a bird, in my dream,” he says, unprompted. “That’s weird, right? He’s been a dog as long as I’ve known him! But every time I have that nightmare my brain insists he’s a bird, and it’s like, what?”

Colette laughs a little. “That _is_ weird,” she agrees. “Dreams are silly, even when they’re scary.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd agrees. He thinks over his nightmare, briefly, and shakes his head. “They really are!”

Colette settles into his side, again, and in the silence another memory comes back.

_Small hands clinging to feathers dread in his gut_

_“Stay with Noishe, Lloyd. Everything will be okay. I promise, everything will be okay.”_

(well, it wasn’t okay, but Lloyd can’t blame him for that)

“Here.”

Lloyd looks up to Kratos holding out two mugs of coffee—coldbrew, but at this time of night, Lloyd can’t blame Kratos for not wanting to mess with a fire. It’s a good thing Lloyd doesn’t care about the temperature of his coffee. He takes one of the mugs, and Colette takes the other.

“Thanks,” Lloyd says, and Colette echoes.

Kratos stays there a moment longer than necessary, which is weird, but Kratos is always doing weird things like that.

“I hope you are able to get more sleep, tonight,” Kratos says, which Lloyd thinks he means to be reassuring, or something. Kratos walks to the other side of camp before Lloyd can say anything, but that’s fine.

Lloyd takes a sip of his coffee, then hums in delight. Just the right amount of cream. How come _Kratos_ remembers how he likes his coffee, but Genis never can? He spends way longer than he needs to pondering that— _better that than the images that still somewhat persist in his mind’s eye_ —until Colette shifts.

“Hey,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“Did I ever tell you about that one dream I had, that one time?” Colette asks. “That one with the whale?”

Lloyd thinks so, but if it’s the dream he thinks it is, then he loves hearing it.

“Maybe,” he tells Colette. “Tell me anyway?”

Colette does, as they drink their coffees ( _well Colette barely touches hers but she’s talking so that’s understandable_ ) and Lloyd is grateful, immensely grateful, for her company and the distraction, grateful he has something else to think about other than his dream and the disturbing images that came with it.

They don’t sleep at all for the rest of the night, but that’s alright, too.


End file.
